Musings of a Muse

Whipping out your best smoky eye for the holiday season?

I’m not. Dude, smoky totally makes me look tired lately. I’m whipping out my best brown smoky eye…

However, those rocking the traditional smoky eye might want a little extra helping hand and a solid base with a little drama. Bring in the Sleek Makeup Molten Metal my little flying monkeys, yeah, I have flying monkeys around doing my bidding, I roll like that.

Jump!

A few days some of Bare Escentuals Holiday 2011 Collection popped into my mail box. One of the items included in the envelope that I tore open with my teeth was the new A Toast to Tints Trio.

Now…I wasn’t really reading at the time, I was merely foaming at the mouth, teeth bared, and OMG so excited about NEW MAKEUPZ so I didn’t read the box on these tints, I simply ripped them out of their packaging, and started applying to my lips like a mad woman. Promptly after I scrunched up my face and mouthed, “Ewww! WTH?!”

I wasn’t particularly keen on the formula…

Jump!

My dad likes to tease my mum, telling her that we (my sister and I) are probably the milkman’s children. Shrug…..these people have been married as long as the grass has been green so I guess it’s ok that they tease each other about this kinda stuff.

Personally I think he’s wrong. My dad wasn’t the milkman, he was probably an ape because I’m one hell of a hairy beast. No shame in my game. My brows and stash are out of control, it’s a scary fact or should I say hairy fact?

Thank you beauty gods for wax what would I do without you? Oh yeah, I’d be a monkey that’s what. I prefer not dealing with the drama of waxing my own brows or upper lip. It’s just easier to head to the salon and have them do the dirty deed for me. I actually go to these really sweet Korean girl’s who own a local shop here……sometimes they’ll start chitchatting with each other as I lay on the table in fear. My Korean isn’t particularly great so I suspect the conversation goes something like, Cho Hee: “Oh my God, girlfriend is so hairy!” “I’m going to take a quickie cellphone pic while she lays here with her eyes closed and post it on the Internet…”! Sun Jung: “Oh do it, we get mad hits on the Internetz with a picture of the Muse’s hairy upper lip!”

Yup, they are so discussing my hairiness with words like chum-shim thrown in that’s obviously a clue about how they are talking about hairiness, nods, for serious (heavy sarcasm here).

When I don’t have time to go see Cho and Sun I have to take matters into my own hands at home so that’s why wax strips are such an easy way to go. The kind with the wax built right into the strip makes is an ideal way to zip off hair in a flash. However, many of these drugstore kits aren’t exactly the best and they leave behind alot of stray hair.

Until now. Thank you Parissa for making super wax strips to remove even the most stubborn hair!

It’s a sea of Holiday Brush Sets out there.

It’s possibly the best time of the year to make serious purchases to add to your personal brush stash. Buying single brushes from brands such as MAC can become a costly experience that’s why the Holidays are such a great time to stock up because you can get so much more for less.

Almost all high and mid-range brands have 3, 5, 10, or more brushes available in a set. Sometimes brushes are full size if you’re lucky but in most cases they are normally mini. Mmm sometimes they do suffer quality problems if they are mini but I think it’s safe to say in many cases I’ve always been plenty pleased with sets I’ve purchased during the Holidays.

This is particularly the case when you’re looking at a five piece set for say $50. That puts you at $10 per a brush therefore knocking down the price on that $35 full size blending brush to a mere $10 for the mini version. Sweet right?

Napoleon Perdis is always kind enough to introduce his Holiday Brush Sets in full size version. Score!

Take a look at one of his new Luxe Brush Collection Sets for Holiday 2011.

I dunno if we should take fruit shaped skincare seriously. Should we?

It’s just a testimony to how different the Asian market is to our own. Cute, fruit shaped skincare is completely taken seriously dude! Why shouldn’t your moisturizer be shaped like a peach and your eye cream like an apple?

Fruit shaped skincare is actually a common packaging in the Eastern market particularly hand cream. Baviphat (I always think Baby Phat when I type that) is a Korean brand that takes a few notes from Benefit Cosmetics with their packaging, or hey, maybe Benefit takes notes from them? Although some of their color cosmetics have whimsical packaging (a la, you guested it, Benefit) their skincare borders on the edible, foody variety of the sphere.

Take a look at this Baviphat Mango Magic Brightening Mask and you’ll see what I mean.